VISIONARY HEALING Psychedelic Medicine and Shamanism

By Alexander Shester

A psychedelic renaissance is taking place worldwide for those who wish to develop a more comprehensive awareness of themselves and the planet. The proper usage of entheogens can lift the veil from our consensus reality, allowing ordinary individuals to experience a broader field of awareness. These sacred medicines can p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Regent Press
• Release date: Feb 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781587906374

Alexander Shester

Dr. Alexander Shester is a medical doctor, board-certified psychiatrist and Jungian analyst. He has extensively lectured and led workshops on topics related to C.G. Jung, shamanism, initiation rites, and men's psychology. He is the past president of the San Diego Society of Jungian Analysts and a past member of the International Association of Analytical Psychologists. Visionary Healing is his first book. His current interests lie in the areas of the relationship of the human psyche to the natural world, ecopsychology and the preservation of a healthy planet, the roles of fungi and viruses, and the spiritual awareness at the center of the psyche all of which he plans to cover in his next book.

Book preview

Introduction

The human longing for exploration is an innate drive. This search continues in individuals through both outer and inner journeying. External pursuits can take one to new countries and cultures, from the heights of Everest to the depths of the oceans. One can travel to outer space to visit the moon, Mars, and the other planets. Humanity longs for adventures. Another person can take the inward path of discovery into the depths of the psyche and the outskirts of the infinity within to encounter the allies of the soul and spirit world. In these visionary realms, new relationships can be formed with ancestors and historical and mythical figures and guides, as well as with the intricacies of the natural and spiritual world. This inner exploration can open the doors of perception to heal the psyche and envision one’s place within the earth and the cosmos.

The theories developed in the science of physics reflect the correspondence between the macro- and microcosms through understanding the expanding universe, the theory of relativity, and the sub-atomic, quantum domains. The search for a unified field theory between these two discoveries still continues.

However, as applied to human exploration, psychedelic medicines can reveal the intricate relationships between the personal and transpersonal psyche and the mystery of consciousness. In many ways, it can be more harrowing to take the inner psychonautical adventure than to be rocketed into outer space as an astronaut.

This book will instruct and prepare the reader for such a voyage through an introduction to several powerful psychedelic medicines, sometimes called hallucinogens or entheogens (for god within). It will also include personal memoirs describing the sacred usage of psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, iboga, San Pedro cactus, and peyote for my own healing, revisioning of the natural world, and developing my relationship with the spirit domain. Other sacred medicines used in different cultures and historical times will also be described.

A psychedelic renaissance is happening worldwide for those who wish to develop a more comprehensive awareness of themselves and the planet. The proper usage of entheogens can lift the veil from our consensus reality and allow ordinary individuals to experience a larger field of awareness. These sacred medicines can expand insights and encourage behavioral transformation previously available only to privileged mystics.

Currently, so much new information is available about psychedelic usage that it can be daunting for anyone to sort through the deluge. How can you participate in this new period of human awakening and evolution while remaining grounded in integrity? Where can you obtain some accurate knowledge about psychedelics? Whom can you trust to listen to, or read? I hope that through the material in this book, it will become such a reference. I say this with the humblest intention. At my ripe age, I have been highly educated in science, medicine, psychiatry, Jungian analysis, and transpersonal shamanic methods. Under proper guidance over many years, I have undergone initiation through the crucible of experience with psychedelic medicines from around the world, using a vision quest model.

The intention for sharing my inner material is to create a living example of the profound psychological healing these medicines can promote. The visionary aspects describe my evolving relationship to the natural world as well as meetings with many ancestral and archetypal allies.

This book also contains accurate, valuable information about the various entheogens. Shamanic techniques will be described and explained as an aid in understanding the rituals necessary for safe and profound voyages to the psycho-spiritual realm, both with and without the use of psychedelics. These methods can help you prepare for the healing and visionary encounters you may be seeking.

This book’s emphasis is on the sacred use of these substances to promote psychological healing of trauma and visioning to develop clarity about the future and your relationship to the transpersonal dimension of consciousness. I will also discuss the new emphasis in psychiatry and psychology on the use of psychedelics as medicines to treat various psychopathologies. However, the entertainment value, casual usage, and the present trend for micro-dosing psychedelics are not emphasized in this book.

Knowledge does not necessarily bring about change. The insights from nature may give you more choices related to redirecting your values toward preventing the extinction of humanity and all life on planet earth. When insights transform into behavioral changes, hope emerges. This type of exploration is a form of psycho-spiritual activism. It is my belief that when a critical mass of such inner exploration occurs, collective intelligence expands, bringing hope that it will break into our civilization's historical and political realities and humanity’s future outcomes.

In what follows, you can expect to learn about all the major psychedelics from scientific, historical, mythological, and cultural perspectives. The first-hand accounts of my psychedelic adventures and accompanying imagery will provide an idea of what is possible during such an encounter for personal healing, as well as for meeting nature, spirit, and the divine within yourself.

Section One

Shamanism

and

Plant Medicines

Chapter 1

What Is Shamanism?

Shamanism is not a religion, but a method for healing and visioning since ancient times. The shaman learns to get in touch with the animistic spirits, or indwelling sentience, of the earth and the cosmos; where he or she believes healing remedies reside. The gods or spirits involved tend to be local to each culture. The animal spirits with whom the shaman makes connections are among those in that society’s ecosystem. The gods and goddesses, whether those of Greece or of indigenous tribes, are relevant to the culture and generally polytheistic. The idea of monotheism, which maintains a more distant One God over seeing everything, is more representative of later religious traditions.

Shamanism represents an animistic belief system based on direct experience. In this way it is different than science, which is based on an observable method replicable in controlled studies. Spirit as sentience, as experienced by participants, inhabits not only human and animal forms but also the plant, fungi, and mineral realms. The shaman is able to communicate with stones, trees, elves, and fairies residing near trees, springs, and mountains, in order to receive help with healing and visioning. In the shamanic belief system, sentience is experienced as infused into every thing; all things are interrelated: the "one in the many."

Science is the modern mythology that governs what we consider to be truth, but it continues to leave many mysteries unanswered. In shamanism, animistic truths are viewed as valid since they have been in existence since ancient times and appear in all cultures. Carl Gustav Jung, as well as many other psychologists and teachers, believed that both the old and the new ways of knowing may coexist in the psyche of modern humanity, facilitating a more complete, deeper understanding of nature and our place in it.

Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), a Romanian historian of religion, called shamanism an archaic form of ecstasy. Primarily it was a religious phenomenon, but based on direct experience rather than faith. The process of inner journeying to other worlds is distinctive to shamanism. This path is seen as necessary for participants to access help and knowledge, as well as to meet spirit allies who bring guidance in relating to this form of transpersonal intelligence.

The medicine man and woman in indigenous cultures generally functioned in a different role than that of shamans. He or she performed priestly activities through ceremonies and rituals in order to maintain the traditions of the culture. These rituals served the purpose of healing and binding the tribe and were often tied to dogmatic beliefs and rules. Shamans generally had more focus on bringing about ecstatic direct experiences connecting humans with spirits for healing, rather than seeing themselves as the agent of power behind healing. In other words, the power was in the spirits rather than in the person of the medicine man or woman.

Joan Halifax in Shamanic Voices states that the word shaman derives from the Vedic Sram, meaning to heat oneself or practice austerities. (Halifax 1979, 3) This is reminiscent of the two main yogic paths: the left-hand ecstatic path of Tantra and the contemplative right-hand path of the ascetic approach. Of course, between these extremes exist many other practices of yoga, of which the earliest traces date back to the third millennium B.C.E. Eliade alternatively states that the word comes from the Russian Tungusic saman, meaning one who knows, or knows the spirits, of the Evenki culture in the Siberian region of Asia. Shamanism in the strict sense is preeminently a religious phenomenon of Siberia and Central Asia. (Eliade 1972, 4) The beautiful red and white Amanita muscaria mushroom was the common sacrament of these shamans.

The presence of the earliest shaman most likely dates back to cultures from the Upper Paleolithic period until possibly the times of the Neanderthals. The shaman was generally highly regarded within the tribe, but also feared. Shamans were typically viewed as outcasts, living away from the center of the community where the chief (leader) presided in authority. These healers lived on the outskirts, often at the boundary between the village and the forest or jungle. This was the boundary between the known and the unknown, between order and chaos, between the conscious and the unconscious, between the living and the dead, and between the human and the spirit world. It was at this boundary where the shaman was skilled with intercommunication. Often, shamans were perceived as half-crazy because of their vocal ramblings in the spirit world.

The shaman could embrace the concepts of illness, death, and resurrection and was able to realize illumination not privy to most others in the community. Often the power came to the shaman through his or her own near-death experience in childhood, which had left them wounded in some way. It might have been a physical, emotional, or spiritual experience that could have resulted in literal death, but, if the person survived this, he or she was often reborn into the world of a healer. This represented the initiation into their culture’s magico-religious and healing realms. This experience often left the person with an intuitive window into the illnesses of others. It is said that only the wounded healer can heal. This capacity represented the main power or gift of the shaman.

In broader terms, the experience of death and rebirth is a hallmark of the initiatory process. A person who looks death in the face becomes liberated from fear and limitations. It is the necessary way out of ordinary reality (or consensus trance) before transcendence can occur. For modern participants, this ritual death is the crucial experience in shamanic journey work. It is what humbles the ego in its attempts to become inflated when encountering the transcendent realm. Death of the ego is necessary before rebirth; this experience for humans mimics the changing seasons in nature. Often, between death and rebirth, there is an incubation period or pregnancy where one is utterly alone, orphaned from family, community, and old beliefs; until one is ready for rebirth into a new phase of life, at which time one is often given a new name and new responsibilities.

Mythologically, it is important to remember that the message was never to incur the envy of the gods by trying to become one in an act of hubris. Sooner or later, a leveling process would occur with a consequent fall from grace. In the Greek myth, the fall of Icarus and the Egyptian story of the Phoenix represent the consequence of hubris, or ego-inflation. In Jungian psychology, this would be considered an ego identification, with the transcendent leading to inflation, rather than forming a relationship with the archetype.

The shaman’s traditional role as healer pre-dated the treatment methods of Western medicine based in science, which became the prevailing belief system (or mythology) of the 20th century. The gods and spirits have completely disappeared in the practice of modern medicine, where shamanistic practices are seen as based in superstition and mysticism residing in altered states of consciousness. Shamanic healing is still utilized in extant indigenous cultures, as will be described in later chapters.

It is interesting to note that as one result of the growing disillusionment with the Western medical model, shamanism is gaining acceptance once again. Additional alternative healing practices such as forms of meditation, acupuncture, body movement and dance, drumming, and natural supplements and herbs are all being incorporated into the integrative medicine approach. This approach is finding an increasing number of adherents in recent years.

Currently, due to the increased popularity of psychedelic-based shamanistic quests, there are many neophytes, so-called shamans. Many of these people have not done sufficient inner work of their own, yet wish to become known as sacred leaders or desire to exploit others financially (although they may be unconscious of these motives). These individuals are more concerned with self-interests, power, status, and getting on the psychedelic bandwagon. Such people are found not only locally but also in villages in the Amazon, due to the growing popularity of Westerners seeking an ayahuasca experience. An aspect of modern eco-tourism is a travel adventure during which an uninitiated patron can meet a personal shaman and drink magical intoxicants. One can buy bottles of ayahuasca from street vendors in places such as Iquitos, Peru. Without proper preparation and developing an appropriate mindset and setting, a life-changing or transformative experience is unlikely.

It seems that the psychedelic adventure has once again become widespread for those wishing a short circuit to the sacred realm. As in the days of Timothy Leary in the 1960s, when something becomes a collective phenomenon, the original value is very often diluted, becoming corrupted, then criminalized and made illegal. As with other forms of modern spiritual practice, there are many spiritual window shoppers who are unable to integrate the experience back into their daily life. The movement to decriminalize certain psychedelics such as psilocybin, MDMA, ayahuasca, and cannabis is occurring in some states, as more research into their medical and psychiatric use is becoming evident.

Chapter 2

My Background

Later chapters provide a subjective description of the major psychedelics in terms of experiences I have had with each of them, as well as from a scientific and historical perspective. So, who am I, and what are my qualifications for talking about psychedelics? I will tell you a little bit about myself before we take a closer look at preparation for journey work and each of the psychedelic plant medicines.

Early Days

Being a healer has been in my blood since I was a child. My fascination with doctors began after a surgery when I was nine years old. This would become my first introduction to the concept of the wounded healer—healers who themselves need healing. When younger, I thought about being a fireman, a policeman, or a soldier when I grew up, yet after the surgery, I felt a hero worship of doctors and intuitively knew my eventual fate was to become one. I started watching TV doctor programs (Medic, Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey), which consolidated my curiosity for this profession. My mother made me a surgeon’s outfit with gown, hat, and mask. My sister and I started operating on her dolls, playing doctor and nurse. She eventually did become a nurse, just as I became a doctor.

FIGURE 1. Author, young Alex, age 10, dressed as a surgeon for a Halloween parade at elementary school.

At the time, I obviously was unaware of the difficulties to achieving such a goal. Many experiences intervened in my life which created doubts that I possessed the necessary intelligence and perseverance to go through such a prolonged educational ordeal. It was in college that I re-experienced my scientific abilities to the extent that I believed that I was a capable candidate for this vocation.

Becoming a Doctor

I was eventually accepted into three medical schools, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), University of California, Los Angles (UCLA), and University of Southern California (USC). I chose UCSF. I well remember my first day of school in the fall of 1967. I sat in a raised lecture hall, feeling a sense of pride as we students were inducted into the fraternity of medicine and heard the Hippocratic Oath recited for the first time. My initial vision was to become a cardiovascular surgeon.

I realized much later that to become a physician required much more than high intelligence. I have known many people more intelligent than I am who could never have become doctors. To endure the trials of training and practice takes a great deal of motivation, will, vision, and perseverance. Much self-sacrifice, loss of freedom, competition, debt, and mental and bodily stress are involved — especially impactful on persons who are still relatively young. Many arduous years of training with sleep deprivation and self-doubt are inherent in the initiation process of becoming a physician. Many people want to be healers but have never subjected themselves to the crucible of integrating knowledge and responsibility to the degree required of a medical doctor.

FIGURE 2. First-year medical student, full of arrogance and hope, at UC San Francisco.

I completed an extended trial of college, medical school, internship, and residency. While in school, my interest in becoming a surgeon waned. I had difficulty in identifying with the surgeon’s mindset. There seemed to be a certain arrogance, competitiveness, and dedication to surgery at the expense of leading a more balanced lifestyle that did not attract me. My nature was more philosophical and artistic.

Since the time I began my career in the late 1960s, there has been a general societal evolution away from the prior hero-worship of doctors and a disillusionment with the medical profession as a whole. The sacred duty of a doctor has often been contaminated with greed, arrogance, and ignorance on the part of many of my colleagues. I grew increasingly aware that the healing values so important to me were not always shared. Often a disparity existed between raw intelligence (IQ) and spiritual awareness, between facts and wisdom, between rigidity and open-mindedness, and between science and religious faith. Having intelligence is not the same as developing consciousness.

I emerged at the end of medical school, unsure of my path. After a stint as a medical intern and a holdover year as a radiology resident, I was inducted into the Air Force as a medical officer during the last year of the Vietnam War. I was already interested in the philosophy of C.G. Jung and had read The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda. After my two-year term as a medical officer, I was accepted into the UCLA Department of Psychiatry residency program. My thoughts were that my interests in science and medicine would integrate well with my interests in philosophy, psychology, spirituality, and the study of consciousness.

As a resident, however, I soon came to realize that, rather than an exploration of the psyche, modern psychiatry was more focused on studying the aberrant neurotransmitters in the brain, which were seen as contributing to major mental illnesses such as psychosis, depression, bipolarity, addictions, and various anxiety disorders. There were essential things to learn about the neurochemistry of the brain, but it was reductionist in terms of thinking about consciousness.

C.G. Jung

My interest in the transpersonal psychology of Carl Jung then rose to the forefront of my interest and intellectual passion. During my psychiatry residency, I took some outside courses on Jung and dream interpretation. I was accepted into the psychoanalytic program at the C.G. Jung Institute in Los Angeles and began my training in 1981. With a few starts and stops, I finally was certified in April 1990. Typical of my over-idealization that this path provided the key to a more expansive consciousness, I slowly found myself again becoming disillusioned. To me the path felt dry, overly intellectualized, and somewhat cultish. I did learn how to interpret dreams and symbolism from a Jungian perspective and valuable techniques such as active imagination (a form of meditation and dialogue). I also had some outstanding Jungian mentors, but many of the analysts and conferences provided little nourishment for my soul’s needs.

Shamanic Training

While I thought I was on the right path, as my intellectual interests increased, there was a growing inner feeling that I was drying up in an ivory tower of academic thought, missing the experiential realm of the psyche. I felt like Siddhartha on his journey in the novel by Hermann Hesse, stopping temporarily at various wisdom teachings, yet not sensing that I was reaching the essence of my being. So, I pushed onwards searching for passion in my life. As stated by one of my mentors from the Mythopoetic men’s movement, Michael Meade, It is better to stumble in the darkness alone, than to follow a roadmap made by tourists.

It was then that I continued my education by training in and then integrating shamanic techniques for transpersonal exploration. I do believe this range of training prepared me with an expansive knowledge to carry into my career. The difficulty of these integrative steps largely goes under-appreciated by patients, friends, and family. What is important is that I know how the hard work and sacrificing of comforts has been the key to becoming an effective doctor/healer, which was my goal.

I did find that my earlier study of Jung served to further my interest in healing, especially with the methods used by other cultures. Since the time humans first evolved on this planet, there have always existed healers using techniques, whether physical, psychological, or spiritual in nature, to cure illnesses as well as to provide a vision for the tribe. So, I found myself next pursuing this approach to expand my knowledge of healing traditions. In addition to modern, high-technology medicine, I learned about ancient and archaic methods utilized by shamans of various indigenous cultures, which have been brought to our present time and culture.

To help me along this path, I was fortunate to meet some wonderful teachers. One was a Navajo medicine man from Shiprock, New Mexico, known as Spirit Eagle, who used peyote as a teaching sacrament. But my primary influence was Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., a psychologist who was a lifelong practitioner of shamanism and the use of sacred medicines, and to whom this book is dedicated. He was able to integrate these ancient techniques of other cultures and make them relevant to our modern Western mindset. He was sensitive about misappropriating indigenous cultures’ sacred rituals and developed his own hybrid style for teaching. He remained grateful to these cultures but felt the need to make certain shamanic practices available for usage in our present traditions.

Indigenous literally means people who are original or who are descendants of a native culture of a particular region or country. It is crucial to know that this term not only applies to ancient or archaic societies, but also to present-day native people who are attempting to preserve their cultural integrity. It is why these cultures are sensitive to misappropriating their customs by Western-oriented people, such as vision quests, medicine circles, chanting, storytelling, sweat lodges, and sacred plant use. Present-day indigenous cultures are rightfully sensitive to the use of their terminology. Also, when we make use of native customs, what do we give back to them as a form of reciprocity? Credit and gratitude are necessary and important, but often we give little of substance in return for the wisdom gained. Perhaps we could provide better educational opportunities, health care, mental health, and addiction recovery centers to prevent further degradation of these cultures, as well as a heightened sensitivity to their plight, customs, and their land.

While on my path, I never abandoned traditional Western medicine and all that I incorporated from it. Instead I chose to expand my knowledge database by studying Eastern philosophical approaches and indigenous shamanism. Fortunately, in society at large, there has developed a current renaissance of interest in these ancient and indigenous forms of healing, many of which are becoming incorporated into the new field of integrative medicine. While I believe that the traditional medical model is based on the best that modern science can offer, so much yet remains unknown about illness and healing that it is now recognized to have significant limitations. Aldous Huxley notes, As we all know, a little learning is a dangerous thing. But a great deal of highly specialized learning (higher education) is also a dangerous thing and may be sometimes even more dangerous than a little learning. (Huxley 1977, 1)

In the following chapter, I will describe the process of shamanic journeys that I have experienced and practiced in a modern context through the leadership of a guide. This preparation is the same regardless of whether or not sacred psychedelic medicines are to be used during a journey.

Chapter 3

Preparation for a Medicine Journey or Vision Quest

When an individual chooses to undergo an experience of leaving ordinary reality, it is important first to ask: Why go through it at all? For most people, it can be fearful to leave the known in order to venture into the unknown. An intention for the experience is necessary for orientation in the journey. This can arise through the person meditating upon what is needed for the psyche, the body, or the soul at that time.

Developing an Intention

Without a clear intention, the journey can become vague, chaotic, or meaningless. To develop an intention, it is best to ask a question as to what is needed or desired. It is important to view the intention as a bridge from this place to that place, from this world to that world. If the path is too narrow, one may be asking something too rigid or too literal and might miss out on other insights. It is best to develop a question with a wider path so that whatever emerges can be broader and, at times, surprising. The intention for a journey represents a path toward the altered state in order to receive and retrieve new information, but also provides the way back to normal, consensus reality with the insights gained that can be then used for transformation (e.g. the breadcrumbs of Hansel and Gretel).

Some aspect of the person may require healing, which commonly would be connected to an experience of past trauma or disappointment from childhood or the more recent past. The person may be facing something unclear in the future and then would need visioning, especially if there is a feeling of being stuck in the present situation or at a loss about how to develop more clarity in how to proceed in life. Often, the need might be for some combination of healing and visioning.

Often, no clear answer emerges during a journey, but other questions arise that lead to the next step. The answer may not come through directly but sometimes from the side, similar to peripheral vision, allowing one to notice aspects that central (inner) vision misses. Many times during a journey, one can become confused, lost, or seduced into places that are not part of the intention, making it necessary to remind oneself periodically to return to the main path. The shaman or leader may remind you that when you are unclear, have forgotten something, or are lost, it is important to remember your intention.

Ralph Metzner would often say during a session: A wise old owl told me, whatever your journey, wherever you are, don’t forget your 1) intention, 2) your ancestors, 3) the light within you, and 4) remember the earth. It always had a calming and reorienting effect among the participants, especially if some fearful